| Almost everything there is to tell about the Radiance can be found in my last year's Hawaii review. That is why I wanted to put the focus more on the personal aspects this time. For some of you it might not be interesting, but for me these aspects are an important part of our cruise experience. For those who are looking for facts and more, you will find a few, but the emphasis of this review is on the personal aspects. |
|---|
| A few notes about the Radiance: By and large, the ship is in good shape, considering those were her cruises #304 and #305. The cabins had been fitted with the new bedding system, here with decorative cushions and spreads in dark blue. Of course you will find some wear and tear when you look at the carpets or the chairs, the deck chairs, etc. Out on deck, almost every day you can see crew members polishing and painting. But all those signs of old age did not bother us. The service and the food were good but not excellent-with the exception of the two specialty restaurants, "Portofino" and "Chops Grille". You will need 2 to 2 ˝ hours for these dining experiences in order to fully enjoy every minute. The food in the Windjammer Café was, like on other ships, slightly above canteen standard. Thus, we decided to have lunch in the Dining Room when it was open for Brasserie 30 Lunch. Although they only had one menu for the two weeks, the selection of entrees was enough to have more than one lunch in the Dining Room. In the evening, the already well-known menus were presented, among them only one new menu. So we chose different courses in order to discover new dishes. Here RCCL should show more flexibility; I am sure that the Executive Chefs would love to present more new dishes. The meat entrees were rather adapted to the North American appetite than to the average European appetite: Some steaks covered more than half the plate. However, they offered something for every taste, meat and poultry, fish and vegetarian food. But why does the menu selection of the first week have to be repeated in the second week? What about the back-to-back guests? What about a change of menus every 14 days? It was striking that the head waiters and assistant waiters changed after the first week, and it was interesting to us to compare those two weeks with different service. A new experience to us was the large number of kids and teenagers. Because of the Presidential Weeks in the US and the Canadian spring break, many families were on board, with children of all ages from babies to young adults. Most of the time we did not notice it in a negative way. But when we went to the Windjammer for a coffee in the early afternoon, it was often hard to stand and watch some families. Some parents seemed to be free of pain in view of their children's table manners. Relaxing by the poolside was impossible for people who love tranquility. In spite of respective warning signs, children jumped into the pool or romped in the whirlpools. Part of the guests could generally be described as pleblike. We have been told similar stories by some passengers on the HAL Westerdam, however, the price level for this ship is much higher than for the Radiance. Several people must have been drunk; the whirlpools were occupied by some drunken passengers in the late afternoon. Fortunately, they did not use the pool and whirlpool in the solarium. The unprofessional front desk team made a negative impression, since they were not able to register the Crown & Anchor internet coupon on our onboard account, or to make a reservation for the shuttle transfer from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami International Airport. It cost us a lot of time until they found out that they had not made this reservation, and they were not able to tell us the correct price. They said a private taxi transfer would only cost 45-50 $, so that would actually be much cheaper than the RCCL transfer, and were really impolite. It cost us time to get a taxi, and in the end it costs us 83 $ to get from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami International Airport. On the cruise to the Eastern Caribbean there were 2,153 passengers from 29 nations on board, many of them cruise novices and the first time on a cruise ship. On the second cruise to the Western Caribbean, 2,097 passengers from 37 different nations were aboard, also among them many beginners who did not know how to behave on a 4* cruise ship. |
| back | next |
|---|